Package containing large size,flat,flexible articles



1969 G. A. vas'rm. 3,485,413

INING LARGE SIZE FLEXIBIJE AR'IIGL Filed June 18. 196B GEORGE A,VE TAL ATTORNEY United States Patent Ofiice 3,485,413 Patented Dec. 23, 1969 U.S. Cl. 22133 6 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Plastic bags or the like of large size are packaged in a small carton from which they may be individually dispensed, the bags being corrugated in such manner as to be easily removed one at a time through a slot in the carton.

The present invention relates to a package article comprising a dispensing carton containing a stack of large size flat articles made of flexible sheet material and to a method for producing such package article.

Flat articles made of flexible sheet material, such as sandwich bags or napkins, for example, are commonly provided in a dispensing carton in which they may be stacked in their flat condition. The front wall, or the top wall, of the carton is preferably provided with a tear strip. An open slot is formed in the carton when the tear strip is removed to permit grasping of the bag, or the napkin on top of the stack Within the carton. Such articles are also provided in cartons having dispensing aids, particularly in the case of plastic sandwich bags. In one such type of dispensing carton, a sheet of cardboard or the like, sometimes referred to as an insert member, is provided within the carton and the bags are folded about it in such manner that the cardboard sheet urges the bags toward a slot in the carton. In another type of dispensing carton, the articles are in the form of a continuous length, each article being separated from adjacent articles by a perforated line. The continuous length is wrapped around a core of cardboard or the like. The bags are separated from the continuous length by pulling along the perforated line.

While these well-known arrangements are quite satisfactory for the packaging and dispensing of flat articles of small dimensions, they are not practical in the packaging and dispensing of flat articles of large dimensions made of flexible sheet material, such as large size bags or large sheets made of plastic film, for example. These large size bags and sheets, made of a plastic material such as polyolefin or vinyl film, enjoy constantly increasing popularity and are used in more and more applications. The plastic material is produced in film form of varying thickness and is strong, transparent (if it is a polyolefin film), flexible and relatively inexpensive. For example, large plastic sheets may be used for agricultural purposes, in hospitals and in building construction, and large plastic bags may be used to collect garbage and to wrap all kinds of produce. The plastic material may also be produced in the form of yarns or of strips which are used to make a strong, andyet, flexible fabric, particularly desirable in the manufacture of heavy duty bags. Because of their dimensions, these sheets and bags cannot be stacked flat vided, like small bags, in the form of a continuous length, with transverse perforated lines to separate the bags, such length being wrapped around a cylindrical core. Although this arrangement permits individual dispensing of the bags, it still has several drawbacks. Because of the large size of the bags, a very strong pull is necessary to separate each bag from the continuous length. The core is long and somewhat costly; so is the carton. A large size carton also is undesirable because it occupies a large volume of storage space. Another drawback lies in the production of the bags in the form of a continuous length because an unused portion of plastic film must be provided between the bags in the continuous length and this film is wasted.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a package article comprising a dispensing carton of small size containing a plurality of large, flat, flexible articles which are folded and stacked in such a manner that they are readily dispensable individually from the carton.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for folding and packaging into a small size carton a plurality of large size fiat articles made of flexible sheet material in such a manner that. said articles can be easily and individually dispensed frrom said carton.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for folding and packaging into a small size carton a plurality of large size bags made of plastic film material in such a manner that there is no need for any insert member in the carton and that said bags may be easily and individually dispensed from said carton.

The foregoing and additional objects will become more fully apparent from the following description and the accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a stack of plastic bags and apparatus for folding the stack;

FIG. 2 is a similar view illustrating the formation of corrugated folds in the stack of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the corrugated stack of FIG. 2, ready to be placed into any empty carton;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of an open carton into which the corrugated stack of FIG. 3 has been placed; and

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the carton showing the manner in which the bags are individually dispensed by the user.

According to the invention, a package article is provided, which comprises a dispensing carton containing a stack of large size, flat, flexible articles folded into a corrugated pattern, each of the articles being dispensable from the carton individually.

The invention also provides a method for folding and packaging into a small size dispensing carton a plurality of large size flat articles made of flexible sheet material. This method comprises forming a stack of said flat articles, corrugating the stack into a plurality of loose, deep folds extending substantially parallel to the transverse axis of the stack, gathering and compressing the corrugated folds, placing the folded stack into an open carton and closing the carton. The top wall of the carton may be provided, in a manner well known to those skilled in the art, with a removable tear strip which upon removal thereof forms a longitudinal opening or slot above. the folds for dispensing the contents of the carton.

When the slot is open and fingers are inserted into the carton to grasp a fold of the article on top of the stack, only this particular article may be pulled out of the carton in an easy way because of the corrugated pattern of the folds. The rest of the folded stack remains undisturbed. There is no need for an insert member. The pressure exerted against the stack by the walls of the carton is sufficient to maintain the integrity of the corrugated stack and the top of one or more of the corrugated folds is always near the slot.

Unless the initial flat articles are very narrow, they should first be folded individually along their longitudinal axis before being piled up into a stack. The number of these longitudinal folds depends, of course, on the original width of the article. The length of the carton corresponds to the width of the stack, as will later be explained, and the smaller the carton the cheaper it is and the easier to handle. Therefore, the stack should preferably have as narrow a width as practically possible.

There are various manners of corrugating the stack. For example, the stack may be placed onto a corrugated supporting surface and be forced by pressure to follow the contour of the corrugated surface. Or the stack may be placed onto a supporting surface made of a plurality of spaced-apart parallel fingers and another set of spacedapart parallel fingers disposed in offset relations with respect to the fingers of the supporting surface brought down upon the stack and forced to pass between and below the fingers of the supporting surface, thus corrugating the stack.

Referring now to the drawing, there is shown in FIG. 1 a stack 10 of large size bags made, for example, of a plastic film material such as polyethylene. These large size bags have already been folded individually longitudinally several times to a narrow width and then piled up into a stack by mechanical means well known in the art. The stack 10 has been placed onto a horizontal supporting surface comprising a first set of fingers 12 disposed in parallel, spaced-apart relationship. A second set of fingers 14 extends above the stack 10. The fingers 14 are also disposed in parallel, spaced-apart relationship with respect to each other. They are in a plane parallel to the first set but positioned in offset relationship with respect to the fingers 12.

In FIG. 2 the stack 10 is shown after it has been folded into a corrugated pattern. The fingers 14 have been lowered and passed between and below the fingers 12, forcing the stack 10 down with them and thus shaping said stack into a corrugated pattern of loose, deep folds 16.

After withdrawal of the fingers and compression of the corrugated stack, the compressed corrugated stack, illustrated in FIG. 3, is ready to be placed into an empty carton.

FIG. 4 shows a conventional open carton 18 into which the corrugated and compressed stack has been placed. The length of the carton corresponds to the width of the stack, and its height corresponds to the depth of the corrugations. The top wall of the carton 18 has a slot 20 through which one of the corrugated folds 16 can be seen. The carton may be loaded with the stack either through an open end or through the open top of said carton.

It does not matter which fold is grasped and pulled by the user. In any case, a single bag 22, the one on top of the stack 10, is easily pulled out of the carton 18 as shown in FIG. 5 and the integrity of the corrugated stack is otherwise preserved. Bags made of plastic material are particularly easy to pull individually out of the carton because of the slippery character of said material.

A stack may be made of 5, 1O, 20 or more large bags, for example, depending on the thickness of the bags. Obviously, the number and spacing of the fingers will depend on the length of the bags and on the number of corrugated folds desired. The depth of the folds may also be varied at will be pre-setting the length of the downward path of the fingers 14.

The expression large size, flat, flexible articles herein employed refers to articles whose dimensions are at least about /2 inches wide and about 14 inches long, and larger, and a small size, flat article is one whose dimensions are below about 10 /2 inches in width and about 14 inches in length. The small size articles are, for example, sandwich bags and food storage bags. Standard size sandwich bags, about 6% x 8%" are conventionally packaged into cartons 7 A" in length, 2 /2" in width and 2 /2" in depth. The larger size food storage bags are conventionally available in cartons 2%" wide x 2%" deep x 10% long. The invention provides a method for packaging flat articles of a size as large as 36" X 60" and even larger into cartons of approximately the same size or slightly bigger. These cartons are inexpensive, easy to handle and do not take up much shelf space.

EXAMPLE 1 Large polyethylene bags having a flat width of 36" and a length of 56 were first longitudinally folded to dimensions of 18" x 56" and again longitudinally folded to dimensions of 9" X 56". Five of these thus folded bags were piled up into a stack having a width of 9" and placed in a corrugating machine operating according to the embodiment illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The resulting corrugated stack had seven corrugated folds and was packed into a commercially available carton having the following dimensions: length: 9 /2", width: 2%", depth: 4". The bags were easily dispensed individually, without affecting the corrugated pattern of the bags remaining in the carton.

EXAMPLE 2 Plastic film bags having a flat width of 30" and a length of 37" were first longitudinally folded to dimensions of 15" x 37 and, again, longitudinally folded to dimensions of 7%." x 37". With ten of these bags, a stack having a width of 7 /2 was formed and placed in the same corrugating machine as used in the first example. The resulting corrugated stack was then placed into a commercially available carton having the following dimensions: length: 8%, width: 2%", depth: 4%". As in the previous example, the bags were easily dispensed one by one from the carton and the last bag in the carton had retained the corrugated pattern. It had not been heretofore possible to package as many bags of these large sizes into cartons of such small dimensions.

Although in both preceding examples the bags have been folded twice longitudinally, it should be well understood that they could also have been folded 3 or 4 times or more. They were twice longitudinally folded in order to produce a stack of a width capable of being packaged into readily available cartons whose length was respectively 9 /2 inches and 8% inches.

What is claimed is:

1. A package article which comprises a small size dispensing carton, having a wall provided with a slot, said carton containing a stack of large size, flat, flexible, generally rectangular, articles, each of said articles having a fold therein decreasing its apparent width, said stack having a pattern of compressed corrugated folds, the length of the carton corresponding to the width of the stack and the apparent width of the article and the height of the carton corresponding to the depth of the corrugated folds, at least one of said corrugated folds being readily accessible through said slot whereby each of said articles is dispensable from said carton individually.

2. A package as claimed in claim 1, in which the large size, flat, flexible articles are bags.

3. A package as claimed in claim 1, in which the large size, flat, flexible, articles are sheets.

4. A package as claimed in claim 1, in which the large size, flat, flexible articles are made of a plastic film material.

5. A package as claimed in claim 1, in which the wall provided with a slot is the top wall of the carton, said slot extending in a substantially central portion thereof.

6. A method for folding and packaging into a small size carton a plurality of large size flat articles made of flexible sheet material, which method comprises individually folding each of said flat articles at least once along the longitudinal axis thereof to a narrow .width,

forming a stack of said individually folded, narrow Width articles,

corrugating the stack into a plurality of loose deep folds extending substantially parallel to the transverse axis of the stack,

gathering and compressing the corrugated folds,

providing an open carton with a slot in a wall thereof, said carton having a length corresponding to the Width of the stack and a height corresponding to the depth of the corrugated folds,

placing the folded stack into said carton with the top of said corrugated folds adjacent said slot, and closing the carton.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS Palmer 221-33 X Curry 206-57 X Tipper 270-40 X Buttery 221-33 Krake 206-57 X Gale et a1 206-57 X U.S. Cl. X.R. 

